A KEY part of First World War centenary celebrations in a village have a hit a stumbling block due to red tape.

When members of Odiham Parish Council started making preparations for the upcoming centenary, they were surprised to discover that they were required to prove that they owned the Odiham War Memorial in advance to doing any of the work.

Councillor Jon Hale, chairman of Odiham Parish Council, said: “After the memorial was listed by Historic England [last year], it seems that now we have to prove that we are the owners of the memorial before we can carry out any work on it in advance of the event.

“It’s put us in a bizarre position as it is a bit tricky to prove the ownership and memorials of this sort were usually built by groups that came together to get it sorted.

“This means that it was quite a while ago that it was built and a lot of the documents relating to those meetings are not readily available.

"But they will be found and this will be sorted.”

The plans the parish council has are to conduct some repairs and maintenance to the memorial so that it can look its best come the events planned later this year.

This will also include a Victoria Cross slab that will be added by the Royal British Legion, in memory of the soldiers from the area.

Cllr Hale added: “While it is a positive that the memorial is listed, we didn’t list it ourselves, and we were certainly not expecting this admin.

"What should be a positive development, cleaning and maintenance, and a new plaque, is made more complicated by this.

“We want it to look as good as possible, and while it isn’t crumbling or in immediate distress, it would be good to get it sorted before the events.

“It’s unfortunate that we’ve had this unseen ‘red tape’, but we are confident that we can get started in time.”

When contacted for comment, Hart District Council told The Gazette that the works to the war memorial require listed building consent, however the owner of the memorial is not known.

A spokesperson for Hart District Council said: “Legally, if the applicant is not the owner then they must serve notice on the owners, or if the owners are not known an advertisement must be placed in the local newspapers for a period of 21 days to see if anyone claims ownership.

“If no-one claims ownership then the application for listed building consent can still be made.

“This is a requirement of the legislation which Hart does not have any discretion over.”

Events will be commemorating the end of the First World War in November this year, and the parish council also has plans to show their appreciation for the RAF with their RAF100 street party event, which is also being planned for this year.